Home values are cooling off

original article: https://la.curbed.com/2019/1/4/18167200/buying-a-house-los-angeles-2019-real-estate-predictions

Home prices in LA began to level off in the second half of 2018. Photo by Liz Kuball

For most of the last decade, Los Angeles has been a seller’s market. Since 2012, when housing prices began to recover from the Great Recession, competition among buyers has been fierce and real estate values in the area have ascended rapidly.

But market analysts and real estate agents say those trends are changing. Home prices have leveled off in recent months, and the number of overall sales is far below the historical average.

“Things have slowed down,” says Keller Williams realtor Heather Presha, who specializes in the South LA market. “The buyer pool is smaller. Normally I’m pretty even-steven with buyers and sellers, but starting in October, I didn’t have any buyers and I had a bunch of sellers.”

Compass realtor Emily Bregman, who specializes in Westside properties, agrees that the market is shifting.

“When you talk about families buying homes,” she says, “they may not be willing to stretch the same way that they were a year ago.”

What’s changed?

Aaron Terrazas, director of economic research for Zillow, tells Curbed that a wave of millennial buyers that energized the national real estate market in recent years appears to have crested.

“There are still millennial buyers out there, but that big pressure that built up as they moved from renting to buying has passed,” he says.

Part of that is because home values have risen so much that many would-be buyers are simply priced out of the market. That’s particularly true in Los Angeles, where wages lag far behind housing costs.

Housing affordability in LA hit a 10-year low in 2018, with the cost of a monthly mortgage amounting to nearly 75 percent of the median income in the area, according to a recent report from real estate tracker Attom Data Solutions.

Affordability woes could worsen nationwide in 2019, depending on what mortgage interest rates buyers get when taking out a home loan. Even a small change in rates can affect the type of home buyers are able to afford.

That means that, given a 20-percent down payment, a monthly mortgage payment for a median-priced ($600,000) home in LA County would be $2,432 (not including property taxes or insurance).

But if interest rates rise to 5 percent in 2019, as many analysts expect, that monthly payment would rise to $2,577. At 5.5 percent, the payment would be $2,725.

Those extra dollars add up. A recent report from Zillow finds that just 17.2 percent of homes in the Los Angeles metro area are affordable to buyers who earn the median income. Already a discouraging statistic, that share drops to 12.8 percent if rates rise to 5.5 percent.

Fortunately for buyers, Terrazas predicts rates won’t climb quite that high in the coming year; he says an increase to between 5 and 5.25 percent is more likely.

Home values are also expected to inch up at a more modest pace in the year ahead, though Terrazas notes that more competition for homes with smaller price tags could make values rise faster at the lower end of the market.

“As affordability gets stretched, more affordable homes will become more desirable,” says Terrazas.

That means buyers with bigger budgets will have a definite advantage when shopping for a home. Those with less to spend may have to get creative.

“I had a couple that had been living with their parents for a year and a half, then bought a duplex,” says Presha. It worked out in the end, she says, “but they had to stand living with their parents beforehand. It was not easy.”

Bregman says at the higher end of the market, sellers will have to “readjust their numbers” when considering the value of homes that aren’t in “A-plus” condition. Fewer buyers means there’s more room for shoppers to be picky.

“It’s still a sellers market if you’ve got a good property,” she says. “It’s just not at the same frenzied pace that we saw a few years ago.”

Terrazas says it’s unclear how a recession would affect Southern California’s housing market, but argues that homeowners probably won’t see the value of their properties plummet, like in 2008.

“So much depends on what prompts the recession,” he says. Because risky home mortgages fueled the Great Recession, the real estate market took an outsize hit when the economy tanked. But banks today are far more conservative when making home loans, making a real estate market collapse unlikely.

Terrazas says both buyers and sellers holding out for a sudden shift in the market may be disappointed.

“When you try to time the market, that almost never works out,” he says. “Your home is a place to live. It’s not this thing to play risk with.”

Bregman agrees that buyers and sellers will need to deliberately consider real estate moves in the new year.

Click the map below to see theseFaircrest Heights and surrounding neighborhood properties available to tour this weekend on Saturday, January 19th through Sunday January 20th.

Work With A Local Expert

If you’re looking to buy or sell a home in Reynier Village or the Los Angeles area or just want advice on the state of the market, you should call someone who knows the area and LA market inside out, please contact me at 323-646-6569 or Laura@LauraAndersonRealtor.com. I live, shop, & work here alongside you. I sell real estate in the areas of our city I am most passionate about – Faircrest Heights, Reynier Village, Mid Wilshire, Mid City, Culver City, DTLA, Playa Del Rey, Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, Hancock Park, and Beverly Hills. At Keller Williams, I am one of the top ten agents in my office, receiving many production awards, and I am a member of the “Agent Leadership Council”, but that’s the behind the scenes stuff. What matters to you is that I am passionate about what I do, where I live, and that I understand the local real estate market. I want my clients to be happy, offer referrals, and do business with me again.

Click the map below to see theseFaircrest Heights and surrounding neighborhood properties available to tour this weekend on Saturday, January 12th through Sunday January 13th.

Work With A Local Expert

If you’re looking to buy or sell a home in Reynier Village or the Los Angeles area or just want advice on the state of the market, you should call someone who knows the area and LA market inside out, please contact me at 323-646-6569 or Laura@LauraAndersonRealtor.com. I live, shop, & work here alongside you. I sell real estate in the areas of our city I am most passionate about – Faircrest Heights, Reynier Village, Mid Wilshire, Mid City, Culver City, DTLA, Playa Del Rey, Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, Hancock Park, and Beverly Hills. At Keller Williams, I am one of the top ten agents in my office, receiving many production awards, and I am a member of the “Agent Leadership Council”, but that’s the behind the scenes stuff. What matters to you is that I am passionate about what I do, where I live, and that I understand the local real estate market. I want my clients to be happy, offer referrals, and do business with me again.

Click the map below to see theseFaircrest Heights and surrounding neighborhood properties available to tour this weekend on Saturday, January 5th through Sunday January 6th.

Work With A Local Expert

If you’re looking to buy or sell a home in Reynier Village or the Los Angeles area or just want advice on the state of the market, you should call someone who knows the area and LA market inside out, please contact me at 323-646-6569 or Laura@LauraAndersonRealtor.com. I live, shop, & work here alongside you. I sell real estate in the areas of our city I am most passionate about – Faircrest Heights, Reynier Village, Mid Wilshire, Mid City, Culver City, DTLA, Playa Del Rey, Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, Hancock Park, and Beverly Hills. At Keller Williams, I am one of the top ten agents in my office, receiving many production awards, and I am a member of the “Agent Leadership Council”, but that’s the behind the scenes stuff. What matters to you is that I am passionate about what I do, where I live, and that I understand the local real estate market. I want my clients to be happy, offer referrals, and do business with me again.

original article: https://www.lacity.org/blog/download-shakealertla-earthquake-early-warning-app-now

The City of Los Angeles, under the oversight of Mayor Eric Garcetti and built on the ShakeAlert system developed by the U.S. Geological Survey has released ShakeAlertLA, a mobile app that sends alerts to users within Los Angeles County that an earthquake of greater than magnitude 5.0 or level IV intensity has been detected and that they may soon feel shaking. The app is available for both Apple and Android devices and available in both English and Spanish. You can also use this app to prepare for an earthquake, get details on recent earthquakes, and find help after an earthquake.

A Collaborative Partnership
The ShakeAlertLA app is brought to you by the Office of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, the Information Technology Agency and the Department of Emergency Management. It has been made possible by support from the Annenberg Foundation and the Mayor’s Fund for Los Angeles. This app is an official pilot in partnership with the U.S. Geological Survey.

The good news is that rental prices are leveling off

original article: https://la.curbed.com/2019/1/2/18165436/los-angeles-how-much-rent-costs-prices

According to the report, Los Angeles renters paid nearly $2 billion more during 2018 than the year before.Ruben A Martinez/Shutterstock

It’s no secret that Los Angeles rental prices are some of the highest in the nation, but a new analysis from HotPads, a rental database owned by Zillow, illustrates just how much tenants collectively spend on housing each year.

According to the report, renters in the LA metropolitan area, which includes Los Angeles and Orange counties, paid $40.4 billion in rent during 2018. By comparison, that’s more than 423 of the companies on the most recent Fortune 500 list earned in yearly revenue.

Los Angeles was second only to New York in terms of total rent paid, and Angelenos accounted for an astonishing 12 percent of the $504.4 billion spent on monthly rent in the United States during the past year.

LA tenants coughed up around $1.9 billion more in rent during 2018 than the year before, according to the report. But if recent trends continue, local renters may see costs level off a bit in the year to come.

Within the city of Los Angeles, prices dipped slightly in December, according to a separate report from Apartment List. The median cost of leasing a one-bedroom apartment was $1,360 during the month, down from $1,370 in November.

Two-bedroom prices also dipped slightly during the month. They dropped to $1,750, after sitting at $1,760 since late summer.

Those prices are still up since the same time last year, but only by about 1.5 percent. That’s about half the yearly increase allowed under the city’s Rent Stabilization Ordinance, suggesting that LA’s competitive rental market has cooled off significantly since the beginning of the year.

But those numbers only tell part of the story.

Apartment List bases its calculations on U.S. Census data, giving a decent idea of what Angelenos are paying for rent right now. Meanwhile, real estate analyst CoStar uses active listings to get an estimate of what prices those looking for a new apartment are likely to find when searching online.

According to CoStar, the average price of a one-bedroom in Los Angeles County was $1,703 in December. Two-bedroom apartments commanded prices of $2,166. Each of those figures represents an approximately 3 percent increase over a year earlier, but prices have barely budged in the second half of the year.

Between July and the end of the year, prices for both one- and two-bedroom units rose less than a percentage point.

But fear not, Angelenos, the future is bright! From the nearing completion of game-changing transportation projects, to the reopening of beloved cultural icons, to policies that will make the city more accessible to all, this will be the year that reaffirms LA’s role as the best place in the world to live—and these 19 things will make it even better.

1. Metro’s big bus plan. Promising nothing less than a total overhaul of the region’s bus network, Metro’s NextGen bus study intends to make sweeping improvements needed to reverse years of ridership declines. The 18-month study continues with 10 community meetings during January and February, with some major changes to be rolled out by the end of the year.

2. The Music Center Plaza reopens. Essentially untouched since 1964, the sweeping midcentury plaza between the Mark Taper Forum and Dorothy Chandler Pavilion will complete its $40 million renovation this year, welcoming a restaurant and wine bar as well as more seating and much-needed public restrooms.

A rendering of the LaKretz Bridge, which will help people on foot, bikes, and horses get from Atwater Village to Griffith Park by the end of 2019.Courtesy of Bureau of Engineering

3. A new bridge over the LA River. Construction is already underway on a bridge over the LA River that will help pedestrians, cyclists, and horses get from Atwater Village to Griffith Park. (In the meantime, keep track of the ongoing river path closures.) It’s the first of three new pedestrian bridges planned for the river: An Elysian Valley-Cypress Parkconnection is also under construction; another will connect Glendale to Griffith Park. The Sixth Street Viaduct connecting the Arts District to Boyle Heights will be open next year.

4. Bosch is back. Based on former Los Angeles Times journalist Michael Connelly’s crime novels, the modern noir Amazon series features some of the most realistic depictions of LA neighborhoods.

5. More affordable housing near transit. Over 9,000 units have been approved by the transit-oriented communities program, which gives developers incentives for building within a half-mile of transit stops, and 20 percent of those units are set aside for low-income families. And now there’s the new approved Expo Line plan, which allows builders to add more density near five light-rail stations, including a tiny upzoned triangle-shaped pocket of West LA. It’s no Minneapolis, but it’s a start.

6. Tartine’s Manufactory. The crown jewel of The Row’s Arts District complex will finally open in 2019 with 40,000 square feet of coffee roasting, bread baking, and multiple dining options from the famed San Francisco bakery Tartine and Phoenix-based Pizzeria Bianco. Now if only The Row could do something about its transit-unfriendliness.

Los Angeles is focusing on protecting its mature street trees, like these in Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven.Photo by Liz Kuball

9. Target Husk comes back to life—for real this time. Consider it a Christmas miracle. In the final days of 2018, a judge ruled that construction can resume on an infamously unfinished East Hollywood Target. Hopefully it starts with reopening the Sunset Boulevard-adjacent sidewalk that’s been closed for years.

10. More backyard cottages. Thanks to a streamlined permitting process and several local incentives, the city’s planning department estimates that over 5,000 ADUs were permitted in 2018—at least 15 times as many as the year before. That could make for a significant number of units to hit the rental market this year.

Metro Bike’s pedal-assist bikes are on the ground as part of a major bike-share expansion.Metro Bike

11. Electric bikes. At the end of 2018, Jump’s dockless electric bikes started to creep into city limits as part of LA’s new dockless permit system. Metro Bike also added a limited number of electric bikes to its system, and announced plans to expand bike share hubs into East Hollywood, Koreatown, Silver Lake, and Los Feliz. Scooters are great, but e-bikes could be a game-changer for LA’s hills and long distances.

14. Makeovers for six major streets. The city’s Complete Streets Program launched in 2018 with the announcement of a half-dozen street redesign projects meant to add safety features while reengineering the street to absorb stormwater and reflect heat. Most of the projects will be finished in the next 12 months, creating a model for how LA can future-proof its entire street network.

Designed by Perkins + Will and Mia Lehrer + Associates, the outdoor museum Destination Crenshaw will feature permanent and rotating works works of art.Destination Crenshaw

15. The almost-finished Crenshaw Line. Although it won’t open to the public now until 2020, the South LA line will officially be finished in December 2019. Plus this year will see all the final pieces being put into place, including Destination Crenshaw, a stunning public art installation celebrating black culture which will run 1.3 miles along the route.

17. Tarantino’s vision of Los Angeles. For nearly a decade, Quentin Tarantino has been making Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a story about the film industry in the ’60s and ’70s set against the Manson Family murders. This includes scenes where Tarantino meticulously transformed several blocks of Hollywood Boulevard storefronts and theaters into their 1969 incantations.

18. Getting back inside a Julia Morgan gem. Empty since 1989, the dazzling Mission Revival headquarters for the Herald-Examiner on the south side of Downtown will reopen this year after a makeover by Gensler. The Julia Morgan masterpiece—the same architect Herald-Examiner ownerWilliam Randolph Hearst hired to design his Cambria castle—will include two restaurants by Republique’s Walter and Margarita Manzke: One in the ornate lobby and another in the parade of arches newly opened to the street.

But it wasn’t always this way. Long before Amazon Prime, residents of Los Angeles—and the United States at large—spent countless tired hours during the holiday season pushing through crowded department stores searching for gifts and the occasional bargain.

One of the fastest-growing cities on the West Coast in the 20th century heyday of the department store, Los Angeles was home to legions of towering shopping complexes that competed fiercely for customers—particularly during the last weeks of the year.

Stores like Bullock’s, Coulter’s, Robinson’s, and May Co. attracted flocks of holiday shoppers with elaborate window displays, towering Christmas trees, and the chance to speak to Jolly Old Saint Nick himself.

Here’s a look back at the LA department stores that were once go-to destinations for holiday gifts of all kinds. Dated photos are in chronological order.

Los Angeles Public Library

On December 28, 1888, the Hamburgers store in Downtown LA (then known as the People’s Store; photographed above in 1890) explained in the Los Angeles Times that the holiday season had been such a busy one that no one at the company had found the time to place ads in the paper the week before. The store’s daily barrage of column-length advertisements continued as usual after that.

Los Angeles Public Library

Towering Christmas trees could be found in the ornate lobby of Downtown’s Barker Bros. furniture store in 1929.

Los Angeles Public Library

Desmond’s department store on Wilshire Boulevard, seen here in the 1930s, complements an interior palm tree display with a giant Christmas tree placed in front of the entrance.

Los Angeles Public Library

Another Christmasy display at Desmond’s (the sign reads “Everybody wants a gift from Desmond’s”).

Los Angeles Public Library

Crowds pack Broadway in December 1951. Even during the busy holiday season, most stores closed their doors at 9 p.m. sharp.

USC Digital Libraries

Department stores on Broadway competed for customers with elaborate window displays accompanied by music played over loudspeaker at peak shopping hours.

USC Digital Libraries

Christmas trees line the Miracle Mile in the early 1950s. In the foreground is Coulter’s, which was demolished in 1980.

Michael Ochs Archive/Getty Images

May Co. opened its Wilshire Boulevard store (soon to become the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures) in 1939. It’s seen here in 1951, fronted by a tall, illuminated Christmas tree.

Los Angeles Public Library

Most stores put out holiday-themed displays in the final months of the year.

The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

Wilshire Boulevard’s stately I. Magnin exhibited a bejeweled Christmas tree in 1955 that the store claimed was worth $1.5 million. Once in place, the tree was given its own security detail.

Los Angeles Public Library

In 1960, the North Hollywood Sears set up phone stations where kids could call the North Pole. The store’s resident Santa answered the phone from a nook behind the wall.

Los Angeles Public Library

Gift shopping at the Panorama City Robinson’s store in 1962.

Los Angeles Public Library

Bullock’s outfitted its new location at Sherman Oaks Fashion Square in 1963 with a large holiday attraction called Santa’s Castle.

Los Angeles Public Library

In 1982, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner described the interior of Bullock’s Wilshire as “unmistakably a holiday and architectural environment.”

Los Angeles Public Library

In the 1980s, Downtown LA’s Broadway Plaza struggled to attract holiday buyers. The shopping center became Macy’s Plaza in 1996 and The Bloc in 2016.

Click the map below to see theseFaircrest Heights and surrounding neighborhood properties available to tour this weekend on Saturday, December 15th through Sunday December 16th.

Work With A Local Expert

If you’re looking to buy or sell a home in Reynier Village or the Los Angeles area or just want advice on the state of the market, you should call someone who knows the area and LA market inside out, please contact me at 323-646-6569 or Laura@LauraAndersonRealtor.com. I live, shop, & work here alongside you. I sell real estate in the areas of our city I am most passionate about – Faircrest Heights, Reynier Village, Mid Wilshire, Mid City, Culver City, DTLA, Playa Del Rey, Hollywood Hills, Los Feliz, Hancock Park, and Beverly Hills. At Keller Williams, I am one of the top ten agents in my office, receiving many production awards, and I am a member of the “Agent Leadership Council”, but that’s the behind the scenes stuff. What matters to you is that I am passionate about what I do, where I live, and that I understand the local real estate market. I want my clients to be happy, offer referrals, and do business with me again.

The first building in the portfolio is a 49,900-square-foot office building fully leased to Nike. The portfolio also has a pair of buildings leased to five tenants including WeWork. The combined buildings are 88,947 square feet. All of the buildings are in Culver City near the Hayden Tract.

Earlier this year Nike sued Samitaur Constructs for $1 million for failure to complete the construction of the building.

The (W)rapper project is also part of the financing. Once completed, the 16-story plus penthouse building will have 180,548-square-feet of office space. The building, which has not yet been leased, will have a steel structure that will wrap around the building. It will be located near Expo Line’s LA Cienega/Jefferson station, near a handful of other new developments in the area.

“This is a unique opportunity to enter into another financing relationship in Los Angeles, a market where we would like to grow,” said Brad Cohen, senior managing director at Square Mile Capital, in a statement. “In this case it’s with an experienced local operator who is developing a project that will include a future Culver City landmark. We believe this transaction demonstrates our platform’s ability to work on complex transactions and deliver creative, flexible solutions that allow us to challenge the market.”

Samitaur Constructs declined to comment or provide additional information on the financing.

Laura Anderson

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